Human Rights and Ethical Globalization: Speech by Mary Robinson at the University of Oregon

it's been thank you for the wonderful warm welcome and thank you to the various sponsoring groups i've met most of those involved and they also have maybe few various home in fact they almost made me feel too much at home it looked as if it was going to rain this afternoon and i didn't think that was necessary i do very much appreciate his irish flag that is here in front of the podium and i particularly appreciates having the opportunity to come here to the university of oregon here in eugene and to talk to you about quite a serious subject and to be encouraged that so many of you want to come out and wants to discuss human rights and discuss

globalization and for me the fact that i begin to really enjoy is when we have that discussion so i hope that i will start a conversation and then we will really have an opportunity to dialogue have a question answer and some comments and feedback because i'm talking about two issues that often give rise to completely different ideas for people take for example human rights in my experience an audience like this when you mention human rights it actually means different things to many people people think of political prisoners they think of refugee camps of conflict they think of countries like maybe cuba are trying our parents some parts of africa and that the the word's meaning of some of the range of images i don't think that often enough other images come to mind but i was talking and using the words human rights in many developing countries the first thing that would come

to their mind would be well safety from conflict but after the us food security and contaminated water health when my child of education shelter and these are also part of human rights at the international level and when i was high commissioner for human rights late to emphasize the great deal that this is the broad unbalanced agenda and i used to mention quite often a wonderful american woman who played a key role as you recall eleanor roosevelt she was chair of the commission of human rights in geneva the drop the universal declaration of human rights and as a very vivid account of that period and of her work in particular but also the work of the eminent lawyers who worked with her it's a book

called a world made new and it's written by professor marianne clinton who's in the law school and harvard university and it's a very good human accounts but very details and what i liked about it was that the universal declaration was a truly universal document it drew on the great religions of the world looks looked at the humanist tradition it involved an eminent chinese scholar an eminent scholar from eleven and rene casal france john humphreys of canada and eleanor roosevelt made a virtue of the fact that she herself wasn't a lawyer she was the widow of a president's she had been very well known in journalism but she wasn't a lawyer so she bust them and she bullied them in fact and she said don't write the universal declaration in lawyers language because if i can't understand how would be understood in small places close to home where human rights must matter if they're going to matter at all and to have

great credit and their great colors it's written in straightforward language and it embraces this broader agenda it talks about civil and political rights fair trial and badly their rights to have the liberty free press freedom of religion and so on but it also talks about that the adequate standard of living the writer food and safe water and health and education and shelter and dns i'm going to come to another dimension of the universal declaration that we don't hear enough about when i challenge you and to what i learned recently and i won't anticipate myself so that's the human rights agenda a broader agenda and then we come to another concepts but we're very familiar with now we read about it all the time it's used in so many different ways as an overuse of anything of the word globalization and i'm not going to bore you with

definitions of us as you know if your first most simply to the progress of integration all economies and societies and as you also know this complex process has unleashed many forces both for good and for you it has certainly led to increase access to cheaper goods and was also as it has revolutionized communications and it has sparked a more rapid spread of ideas and scientific and technological progress around the world unfortunately the reality of globalization has proven complications fast its benefits while real have been unevenly distributors but globalization has worked for some of the world's people is also left behind or even harmed millions of others yes without a doubt globalization has helped lift millions of people of poverty

particularly in countries such as china and india but on the other hand as we learned in our report them about six months ago from the united nation's fifty four countries are poorer now and they wear before the nineteen nineties in twenty one countries more people are going hungry in fourteen countries more children are dying before the age of five and twelve country primaries school enrollments are shrinking and life expectancy has fallen in some thirty four countries a lot of that because of this terrible a chevy and aids pandemic in subsaharan africa worldwide the number of people living in a chronic state of poverty and daily insecurity hasn't changed much since nineteen ninety and this is something that was picked up in a recent commission that looked at human security in a very broad way it was a commission on

human security and produced a report called human security now but i actually know some students here and university are at learning about because i met their teacher at a dinner short while ago so i know some of you at least know what i'm talking about in this human security report i want to quote a brief passage from us because the report noted that a fifth of the world's people one point to be an experienced severe income poverty and live on less than one us dollar a day nearly two thirds of them in asia and a quarter in africa another one point six billion live on less than two dollars a day together two point eight billion of the world's people live in a chronic state of poverty and daily insecurity and then they go on to say the point of just made a number that has not changed much since nineteen ninety and actually we're going to see this dramatic increase in world population which has been increasing another two billion will be announced in the next

couple of decades and they will be mainly in that very impoverished an area and the situation of vulnerable people of women of children of indigenous minorities is particularly alarming a few months ago i took part in the london school of economics in the launch of a new report on child poverty and there is child poverty here in the united states this report looked at about one point two million children in forty six countries and is the largest and most accurate sample ever assembled and the findings i think simply devastating over one billion children that's a thousand million children more than half of all children in developing countries suffer from severe deprivation of at least one basic human rights such a shelter food safe drinking water sanitation facilities are healthcare and over a

third of children and then you know again a huge proportion suffering from what is described as absolute poverty and that's defined as two or more severe deprivations of there things as elementary as food safe drinking water sanitation and their healthcare i remember visiting that the slum in delhi in india where i was going to a project of a very small civil society organization local indian organization and they call themselves stop this gop and indeed i gather that the indian authorities went too happy that i was going there because it wasn't entirely safe in a very bad densely populated extremely poor area along the riverbank and with that arun no

sanitation and very and that's wrote very hard to get there and by cause we had to walk a certain distance and i went into a small and place and found a project run mainly by women but not entirely and they had three areas of focus one was on education for children in the immediate surroundings because so many of them were often and softens from violence often switch alienates and they would've had no opportunity for schooling they went in the system in any way about this project the second issue was the health of the women themselves and they were having training they're we're focusing on the health of the kurds than they were doing was economic there were making a small income for making candles and they present me with a bundle of these candles and then and the television crew with me i was there as high commission of those but so far sadr was a way of bringing home the reality of what it is to be living in poverty

and when they came out they said to me before you go and the children sing for you and i hadn't really noticed that as the commotion to just narrow lane way with sewage running down the middle of this recall of children squatting down and they stood up and they sign beautifully in hindi we shall overcome and they signed it right to the hands and the costs am for me it evokes so many memories of my time as a law student at harvard during the late sixties and the class of sixty eight on the toes and then the civil rights movement in the south and the many times he sang that song it reminded me of the fighting apartheid in south africa and then it was a song sung by children in the depths of poverty full of hope for the determination that we shall overcome and after that anyone in fact before that when i was asked by journalists what is the worst problem in human rights in the world's you know from your experience as

high commissioner i would answer absolute poverty and it was in the us of most journalists wanted they wanted me to the country or pick an issue like torture and there is a lot of torture in the world but in fact when you live in absolute poverty you have no rights you are abused by the police if you come into contact with them you don't vote if you have no voice in anything and you bear your children young you die young yourself and your life is bruce lish and short and it is full of them or despair and unless sense of hopelessness and that's why it's a wonderful when you see the community spirit that i saw in that small project which is typical of many many others but i saw the fight back of a determination and yet of how difficult it is so when faced with a world that is so divided that it's quite incredible but we can and nice here in them that the state of oregon that i can feel extremely of homeland the population is just a little

less than the population of ireland it's green as i sense the weather is somewhat like my native islands islands and there are many similarities and we can talk together and while we're talking a very significant number something over a thousand children will die on this history of preventable diseases over six million children die each year of hunger more than the more than doubled the population of oregon and these are realities that organizations like unicef tell us and in a statistical sense i think that as go over our head but i have had the opportunity is high commissioner when i say it's not an opportunity it's a devastating experience of being at feeding stations and seeing children babies and young children die in the arms of their parents because i couldn't get to the feeding station in time to be saved and i've seen this refugee camps and where children didn't have

possibility of a mosquito nets a vital medicines and as dai and this really and i know on the vexing fund which is tackling the issue of vaccination a pretty million children and i wanted a never get vaccinations we're trying to reach an additional ten million children and they brought it to the vexing fund is making very serious inroads but this is the kind of world and that we face and it's for that reason but when i finished my term as high commissioner for human rights i felt it would be useful to bring the experience of having seen fought that system meant into the issues off globalization generally and in particular to argue for the need to bridge these divides to build a real human security through texting these issues and my conviction

is that a world connected by technology information transportation and commerce must also be connected by a color of shared the audience and i see human rights are central to this wider values system and if you like as constituting rules of the road for an ethical our values led to globalization that aims to benefit all the world's people it won't mean that we will all have the same standard of living but that we will not live in a world which has such an eye moral immoral unethical unacceptable to fight for so many people have no hope no prospects no way of having a decent job a decent living and if you look at the international system and i keep it as a sign of simple level because really the frame of that thats important every country in the world has ratified at least one of the six key

international human rights treaties and many countries have ratified somewhere between three and six of these treaties but a number of countries are ratified all six and they are i just named them briefly the international covenant on civil and political rights international covenant on economic social and cultural rights be both of those have been ratified by more than a hundred and forty countries and i think i'm in one case of the hundred and forty five in a case was nineteen forty seven the convention for the elimination of discrimination against women has been ratified by hundreds of the five countries the and convention against torture by again a very large number of conventions elimination discrimination against that racism and the final one the convention for the rights of the rights of the child has been ratified by every country in the world except to and you may come back to me later when i tell you what one of those to the united states and the other is somalia and it is interesting but

at this frame of an international treaty on child rights and lacks the support of this great country that it's an interesting issue and one i think and that wants to be talked about more and the reason i mentioned the numbers is that we do have the new system if we implement its unfortunately as you will appreciate them many of the commitments that governments make our paper commitments that be and a ratification is their budgets are implemented in practice and structures that will put in place to fully implement so the real job of work is the work of implementing and holding two accountability governments that have made these commitments as some of you may be thinking that at the time and we live in that era it is difficult to have a new focus on human rights after all we know but since the terrible attacks here in the united states of the eleventh

september of nine eleven there has been growing concern that the real focus has to be on security and but as human rights somehow that come off have the same attention the same that focus in my view that is that response is understandable response of a real focus on human security and on air come betting acts of terrorism i'm all for and believe it's extraordinarily important to combat acts of terrorism but if we reflect on what actually happened on that terrible day it wasn't just a deliberate attack using airplanes full of people with full gasoline tanks into buildings to kill as many people as possible it was also a deliberate attack on democratic values and on the values that were represented and that's extremely tear so in rightly focusing on securing people protecting

people having human security it's also i believe extremely important too hoge to those values and the human rights codes the international covenant for example on civil and political rights allows for secondary patients in times also accuse them the pressure of that kind when it is necessary to put a focus on human security but there are very real safeguards and limits and one of the concerns which and i was very conscious of jury my last year as high commissioner which was the year after and nine eleven as it happened i ended my term on the eleventh september two thousand and two during that last year i found it necessary to express criticism publicly in my capacity as un high commissioner for human rights about certain measures taken in the united states because it was particularly important and too bad

criticize because the united states was viewed them very definitely viewed as the standard bearer for human rights and civil liberties in this area so if the standards would be a rodent that had a very worrying knock on effect in other countries other countries that didn't have the kinds of checks and balances which the united states and had and this became very evidence there were a number of problems there were the lack of clarification of the status of prisoners held at guantanamo bay that is the use of anti immigration laws to hold people for very long periods without access two lawyers after the family or indeed to an expo them from the country without any process and that was a man issue of add the ice states citizens who were designated as an unlawful competence and without the safeguards of the constitution and so long but one of the

differences and in a country like the united states with its strong democratic tradition is that even when you have a difficult time and steps are taken you also have incredible checks and balances you have the courts you have academics who speak and racial bout you have civil society ngos like lawyers' committee for human rights the most effective criticism and so to stop taking of the erosion of civil liberties here in the united states since nine eleven that i've come across is a report by lawyers committee for human rights based in new york called assessing the new normal liberty and security for the post september the eleventh united states if you haven't had a chance to look out of i do recommend tips on their website because it really is quite striking how quickly the walls very serious erosion of civil liberties in this country and they also deal with the knock on

effect with the changes and secure you know in countries that don't have the checks and balances which unites states has come to the former soviet union some asian countries some countries in the muslim world and what happened was human rights and reporters were coming back to me with reports that in certain countries political parties or being and characterized as being terrorists and the suppression of freedom of the press and acts of them political protests and where being designated to be terrorist activities in a way that hadn't up before and clamp down and therefore on their feet of expression and all of this at heart to challenge because when this these issues were taken up with those countries that would settle that the standards have changed and i would get very uptight about that insanely haven't changed i'm in charge and the high commissioner to change and say look us look at the what what's

happening in the country this was the standard bearer so graham cumming then to back how to manage look forwards and in a way that would help us to bridge these divides and also to cope with the genuine feeling of human insecurity worldwide after nine eleven i think if there's one issue that everybody responds to it is a sense that we are we are all less secure but the reasons for that humans insecurity are not quite the same in different parts of the world that's also maybe part of the perception that night and here in the united states and in and europe and i think probably in japan and some other countries being in an increased insecurity is a fear of the terrible attack a chemical or biological or even perhaps a nuclear attack that is the real fear and very deep now and people are nervy and understandably they're concerned about

in a lot of developing countries poor countries that have been talking about that the insecurity is the entrenched continuing insecurity about where the next meal will come from where we get medicine for a dying child when i ever ever the possibility of getting any job never minded decent job will ever be able to get out of here and how will i possibly can survive the circumstances which i find myself but there is that real share it for different reasons sense of insecurity which is why that report on human security was i believe very important but i want to remind us because for some reason this is something that has been quickly forgotten by a lot of people that this short century began very well in human rights terms and it was a moment that i was terribly encouraged by the moment was sometimes two thousand a year before nine eleven when the was the largest gathering ever of world leaders

at the un for the what's called the millennium assembly and the world leaders on behalf of all the countries in the world a doctor at the millennium declaration which was a formal commitments and it was then worked on particularly in the un and to identify a m in simpler terms of like he goes that the world leaders have committed to and committed to in specific time frames and those goals were simple and straightforward an extraordinarily important to hospitals living in world poverty and hunger and absolute poverty and hunger by twenty fifty by twenty fifteen to have every child have access to full time reeducation girls and boys by twenty fifteen to remove discrimination against go trident is very prevalent a number of countries to cut down on maternal mortality and child mortality to deal with a tie the inmates to have access to

water and sanitation and prevent environmental degradation these were the very clear goals of course if you agree as the world did at the beginning of the century on those goals it's important to know what's this cost and was a special conference of you may recall in monterey in mexico and which looked at the cost it was called a conference on financing for development and just before that conference the bush administration president bush announced the millennium challenge account which was new development money from the united states and a very significant increase in preexisting their development eight but the overall global cost not just what unites states would be contributing to the global cost to meet the andes new goals in the timeline of twenty fifteen and was estimated by a team of repeatable economist led by an earnest as a deal before president of their mexico who's currently at the

director of the center for the study of globalization yale university he and his colleagues estimated that it would require an additional fifty billion us dollars a year and when i first heard that figure in an extra fifty a billion in global and money well target says to meet these goals that seems a great deal of money but somehow in the last couple of years it hasn't seemed anything like as much and you know why because we've heard these figures of local militias spending an excess of eight hundred billion us dollars a year and that if the figures for iraq and for maintaining and the ministry and for rebuilding in a rack em and it's just the importance of getting back to the priorities we haven't and finding that very manageable sum of money the new money committed comes to about twelve billion edition of us dollars

and instead of fifty billion and the trouble is now but all of those goals are slipping we're not going to achieve we may statistically achieve more or less the first goal of having those in absolute poverty because china and india have pulled so much of the population of an absolute poverty but overall as i said the figures don't rage the kinds of defiance that i was talking about so in the project that i'm leading now in with this and what my irish fans call very highfalutin title the ethical globalization initiative other seven factors were some episodes it's a hell of a play for that title for a very small budget and their white relishes them it's a budget that does have hefty partners and the us didn't stews and colombian rusty am as two partners here in the united states and as in geneva a very good counsel of human rights experts huge national council and human rights policy and what we're trying to do is bring

both the human rights era norms and standards that i talked about that most countries have signed up to at least part of it not all of the regime to bring that and also the commitment to the millennium goals into the discussion about globalization and to have a more values led globalization were talking about at what the world bank were talking about with the wto with the imf were talking about us and at the thirty am mayor wto discussions in cancun and i was present us were talking about is in the context of migration of the fact that you have if you like three freedoms in globalization but not the force you have free movement of goods services and capital but you don't have free movement of the people who need to look for jobs i'm not saying that you have to open all borders but we do need to look at migration and a much more positive way and begin to match those who desperately need jobs with where jobs are or us bring jobs to them or have a much more

human centered approach to issues of migration because what we're seeing at the moment is the m they're harsh approach to refugees asylum seekers it's much more harsh since nine eleven and the closing of the borders in europe was much worse than the united states in this area let me be fair i've said some tough things about some of the recent united states policy but on migrants and europe is a fortress europe it is very rare are you doing ems i'm unable to see that it's in the economic interests all of european countries have aging populations and that it's better for the economic progress of europe to an embrace diversity and multiculturalism and to have a whole new approach to issues of migration but and that is they're being resisted as we know and what is doing in human rights terms of course is driving so many desperate migrants into the hands of criminal gangs criminal gangs make great

money from them they are bringing migrants in very unsafe conditions it's an all or you also have that terrible and dark side of globalization the trafficking in human beings in and women and in their children far and sex or for a forced labor for and they're finding and then when they come to countries without papers completely dependent it's a new and form of slavery in many ways and so we need to address and happily there is now a new commission on migration at to address that issue and where does this come home in a university like the university of oregon are a community and like them the community here in eugene and i think that's the best way to bring his home is to go back to that small

part of the universal declaration but i skipped over at the beginning ice talked about the broadway in which a pretext rights but i also wanted to refer to the fact that it is the documents that i think is truly universal because it has an important to mention that to me wouldn't be characterized as being western and other people think when the universal declaration is a western agenda but i'm going to read to an article of us which to me is much more the philosophical approach an approach of solidarity ends of the community it's like the wind to principles in africa it's like an asian sense of solidarity than anti western approach its article twenty nine part of one of the universal declaration which says everyone has doozies to the community in which alone the

free and full development of his personality is possible now you have to remember that the universal declaration was adopted in december of nineteen forty eight so it wasn't so gender sensitive but i've met some very strong gender and there and women's studies people here already am in the university this afternoon so i want to read this and more gender sensitive way so we can think about it again and in that way it says everyone has duties to the community in which a lone the free and full development of his or her personality it's possible if we break that down it's extremely interesting festival we all have a duty to community but who is the community is that the community here locally in the university in the city and the state of oregon in the united states or no in our world does include haiti mean who is community how far do we stretch and

so that's something to think about we everyone has a juicy to community and the clear in france security meaning is not only do you have a duty but you must do something about church and if you don't know that you have a juicy and act on that and do something about as you yourself have not fully developed your personality and you're not fully whole new person in one sense unless you have that link with community and interestingly if i can just let my irish flag they're down to remind me and to find where my irish half for a moment and i was president of islands are really when i was a come to us seeking votes to become president i know that one of the great strengths of that time in nineteen ninety in ireland was a commitment to local self development ireland had reached a certain stage of prosperity in the european union and not as much as it had and during the nineties that it had begun that process but a lot of the services and supports and

community facilities were in dublin as the capital city or pork maybe one or two other places and a lot of people in rural areas are smaller towns wanted some other sports facilities places for all people refuges for battered wives and so on but they realized that the central government wasn't going to do what they hoped and did ask for long enough so they just said look we do it ourselves we just make it work we work together and we do it and this happened in extraordinary fashion and meant that was a huge provision of supports and services and clubs to make and they used an irish word over and over again to describe this and the word was metal and so i was meeting metal clubs many communities the spirit of metal and i was invited to launch amanda project for young people and so on and that word mahal and means linked with neighbor and there's no english word seven point of what a pointedly and to

detain it's it's it's but it comes from the fact that ireland's was an agricultural country and that it has a strong tradition of working on one farmer's field one week and then everybody moves the next farmer harvesting and so on the missouri and working with labor and the whole and there because you are connected to your neighbor and that's very similar to the idea of everyone having a juicy two community without which you yourself are not full of not developed a full personality and another thing that i used to do i was president of ireland was to recognize that if you really wants to convey something you really want to say something you're looking for words it's much better to go to the ports and ireland has a surplus of really good poets is they really do put things very well and in this collection as a poem of seamus heaney is seamus heaney got

the nobel prize for literature as some years ago and he is an extremely well known and well loved figure in ireland and t has there in reached out in a particular way and he wrote a poem for amnesty international and he does gifted it to themselves no copywriter nothing and when i was taking up my posts going from because the violent to become high commissioner in geneva i've got a framed copy of this poem from amnesty and ireland wishing me well and was signed by seamus and was behind my bed desk the five years that i was in geneva and it's important that i think captures this idea of uc to community of in ohio to an era have a dimension of self that is very enriching but also quite demanding the poem is cold from the republic of conscience and i could stop signs that that would be a shame it's a field there was me i'd like to readers and more or less an end with that so we can have a good

discussion from the republic of conscience and i learned as in the republic of conscience it was so noiseless when the engine stops i could hear occur you high above the runway as immigration the cap was an old man who produced a wash from its homespun coach and showed me a photograph of my grandfather a woman and customs asked me to do clara the words of our traditional tunes and charms to heal dumbness and divert the evil eye no porters know interpreters know taxi you carried your own burden and very soon or symptoms of creeping privilege disappeared fall because a dreaded ohlman there but lightning spends universal good and parents henceforth old infants and trees during thunderstorms salt is a precious mineral and seashells are held to the year touring bus and funerals the base of all in some pigments seawater

their sacred symbols a stylized both say to say listen here the master the sloping pan the whole amount to shape the key you an open eye at their inauguration public leaders must where to uphold the methanol and weak to atone for that presumption to hold office and to affirm their face that all life sprang from salton tears which the sky cold wet after he dreamt his solitude was endless i came back from that frugal republic was like two arms the one length the customs woman having insistent my allowance was myself the old man roles and gazed into my face and said that was all facial recognition that i was now a dual citizen he therefore desire to me when i got home to consider myself a representative and

to speak on their behalf and my own tongue their embassies he said were everywhere but operations independently and no ambassador would ever be relieved to see how the polish accent notion you go to the republic of conscience you have an experience there that is described in very poetic terms and secondly a creeping privilege disappears and when you come back from the republic of conscience you are a dual system and tj you remain a dual citizen because no ambassador is ever relieved and then you have to ask yourself what can i do and once you started to ask that question it's remarkable that you can always find that you can do and you can do locally and that you can do other things but that's the important thing is to be that dual citizen be that a master of conscience and ask those questions thank you for being such a good audience it's

been the point kids who get no forfeiture of recession and a lot of the girls opens in free and due in oregon and no via the new lights six were unarmed men gunned down by the british military as agents of the provocation a warning and a new large rotor of north belfast and the british and british military forces were they failed to

investigate and positive response or engaged to the to the murders the families now seek a petition with united nations special reports or about these are a an arbitrary executions and i wonder what your thoughts on that our own if you feel a need to do to do anything about stats it's bizarre to is asked this question after all the awareness about the world market what i'd like to do is answer is in a more general way i think it has been very important in the context of northern ireland that it has been possible to bring issues aside of times and very important cases were brought to the court of human rights in

strasburg and they're still cases in the pipeline and where issues island brought the case against hillary clinton on stage and six was successful and in relation to them at the methods of interrogation that are used in detention centers in northern ireland between individual cases it's therefore i'm part of the us legitimate process of seeking ways to vindicates to bring justice i'm not going to comment on the particular case but the idea of going to the reporter is a way of doing that and as it may be it's just illustrates in its own way and that although human rights are best protected locally in fact i often felt in geneva but you don't protect human rights from the outside you they must be strong locally and that's a larger problem in various countries and i was for a very long time a problem and another now in context but then that in broad terms i am happily the situation has improved

though the city had still not fully secure them in an inn in the north of africa i'm an irish american and i'd been following your activities is as president high commissioner in the irish echo which is then they've done some recent features on you you know i wanted to you know ireland has for a long time been active as a country in a variety of different ways in these kind of issues and i wonder if that has to do with the fact that ireland's along with very few other european countries was colonized and not a colonial power and secondly ireland in eighteen fifties went through the great hunger and i don't know whether that spot in irish schools today it wasn't for a long time it is possible to teach that in or even now there's

a law that's been passed sponsored by tony corcoran a native of cork city but it's pretty much unknown and ignored here and i think that it's analogous to the year the armenian genocide in a number of other things and i wondered if you thought the history of ireland had anything to do what the irish concern for these kind of issues and as an economist elena mentioned that the success of the irish economy had a lot to do with the development of the irish regional technical colleges and i thought maybe you'd explain briefly what they are and then he read much for being here on the first part of your question the as sense of identification was developing countries because of irish history is very strong

there it's very strong because there are the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the irish famine that took place over three years while i was present and all schools in ireland were doing projects on the famine and linking inch with the current situation developing countries and there is a wonderful story which links and was an active wonderful humanity from this country when ireland was suffering from that terrible famine and it involved the choctaw people and they had been driven from their tribal lands and they had come together in oklahoma which had been driven to there in the spring of eighteen forty seven to mark the tenth anniversary of what they call the vale of tears the terrible displacement that they had suffered and at forty seven was deterred year of the

devastating irish potato famine and at that stage the more an era of stronger if you like in their desperation had left and emigrated to unite states to cover the cost at its effortlessly foreign even the fiedler who are dying at home and who what even today it gets a coffin ships and as they wear but then in the back during that a meeting in the spring of eighteen forty seven this and the choctaw people learned and we aren't quite sure how does a theory that it may have been a priest to pass through that area to talk to some of them they learned about an island our away or people were starving because their crops failed and that they understood a single crop and the crop fails well then you are in real difficulty and the choctaw people raised hundred and seventy three dollars and centers for the relief of irish famine victims and we know all about that you know how the money was spent because the victorians were very good the bookkeeping part of things

and and as president of ireland and i went to oklahoma and formally at the choctaw people in fact i'm an honoree sheet of the job and the reason that i particularly mention that is it's a reminder to us that nothing really in history of people is forgotten one of the really significant points and that's why the irish famine is very well remembered and so is a good deed just us bad deeds in history linger on and are and the problems so and i think that's where that and it was a story that i like to tell and if the story of the famine is being talked about it it's a very relevant one because the motivation was sure that humanitarian concern was no i don't think that we know of it was just assumed that human gesture and it is very often the case that this is the poorest

who turn out to be the most generous the most giving them because i know what it's like to have to be dirt floor and hungry and just on the narrow technical and colleges agree with you but i think it's an even broader point i think part of the strength of the way of a challenge and benefited so rapidly that economic progress and part of mentioned european union was actually very helpful and that was because of an era de emphasis on education the status of teachers the regional technical colleges and all of that and says other words in ireland we would've said it's education students a degree rejects thank you thank you for coming all the way to allentown many of these terrible tragedies traveler sees that we have talked about

post nine eleven and some of the things that happened to the american indians in this country have been very own have happened largely because of media people and the east's overfed newspaper reports about these horrible indians that were killing everybody and so they said yes and the army out there and kill them all and a lot of people have there's been terrible things going on in the media in this country since nine eleven and it was something that we refer to as the johnny one note press now there's a lot of complicated issues that people are talking a lot about getting back old of the media getting more voices into the media getting more points of view while in our country are which has all the strange o conundrum send contradictions of being so free and so independent and so human rights oriented that where that we're

going off in the opposite direction and being totally fascist so the question is about media media is supposedly so free we can't do anything to control it and it ends up being it can totally controlled by its domed moneyed interests which is supposedly free enterprise but that it actually ends up silencing all voices etc those are big issues that i would love to hear you is what you might say about that yes it is it is a both a big issue and a complex one obviously is extraordinarily important to have freedom of the press freedom of the media but there i think there were all concerns not just here in the united states i think there's also quite a concern in european countries about monopolies building up about them a lot of diversity in the voices and that's one of the points they were making them at the same time they're in some ways the internet

and has opened up and ate another hole capacity add to their communities and i think that there is uncertainty responsibility in the media but i think we can blame the media far what our political issues such and have to be dealt with them that the political level and indeed by joan change he's holding their political public figures to accountability in this area and i don't feel it's not quite the point to in making what others and said because i feel like mudd myself big base now new york i feel this and because this is a very large and diverse country and the coverage all the other worlds the world is i'm very identified with the how and care about a great deal either the stock and as well that's hanging on by the fingernails are not quite hanging on and desperately poor and at work as a lot of them at conflict associated with us and that word doesn't get coverage and if you like as much as i would wish when it does it can be very powerful and was a

powerful series of editorials the new york times called harvesting poverty and effective kept on the web sites that you go the web site of new york times as a terrific set of stories about the impact of trade policy on preventing poor countries treaty of poverty and if we had more of that i would be happier with the media he's another person from a bad microphone and again i beg you not to make his impatience because i'm effective human rights and slightly absurd without recognizing the rights of plants and animals and i wonder if any of this can be achieved without distinct limitations on the rights of money and do you see this is paint something that we have an option of working on well i do this afternoon when i met with some of the faculty and students in university and i was saying

this to me it was very interesting that's at the air first of the major world conference is the conference in rio in nineteen ninety two which is a conference on the environment there was no reference to human rights and then the year after that there was a world conference in vienna on human rights and there's no reference to the environment was more recently there was the world conference on sustainable development in johannesburg and the battery used by civil society was no sustainable development without human rights and i think that is now and you do you have an expert here on the platform with me who came to geneva and took part in an expert discussion which i had and they are invited to come together all of environmental experts and human rights experts and i think in that sense them that there is a willingness to have a more holistic approach and to recognize them that there we have to look as an environmental debt and to mention look at an air contamination environmental degradation all of these issues and

also that it's important for pursuing it an environmental values to use the process rights as we call them of human rights transparency and accountability and non discrimination and songs of the reserve a close and think that and the expert advice that i got from these experts helped us greatly that understand more fully in this new year thank you very much for coming in for your example of graciousness it's very wonderful and i made it's that i'm a better student in geographies i know some of the answer to my question but i was wondering you alluded briefly it's you on economic approaches to some of these problems in china and india are raising the populations and out of poverty simply through their economic isn't that i'm guessing that that maybe there are some stark economic arguments that you would want to modify home i've read a lot about new liberal economics and the idea that i hear in various

forms from people that all we have to do is get them jobs and they'll be fine you know and this will be such a problem i wonder i mean it's a huge topic where do you start when you are faced with people who come to you with that argument i think it's a very relevant issue for all of us to think about is how low we really ensure that they're in developing economies are actually going to develop in an appropriate sustainable way and the international monetary fund there patent a very strong ideological an economic theory that one of the things holding back developing countries will set a bloated bureaucracies and that if there could be a very strong slimming down of bureaucracies that at this village and help in other words to privatize a number of services in erie

of health near of education etc and many people and i'm in this camp believe that this actually was extremely unhelpful and on the whole our many developing countries that in fact it made weak health systems even weaker and weak education systems even weaker and thus it's privatized for police in many developing them and developing countries so you had a few private schools and and a deterioration in a lot of faith and schooling that part of the problem now with a pandemic of take it and aides is at but the health systems are extremely weak and have been weakened farther by these approaches so bad and i think if we if we think even briefly about how most of the economies in europe but i know leading economies their bills economy of this country actually

grew there was a lot of protectionism lot of protectionism a vital industries and sectors that's how it was done and to have an economic theory and that's their didn't apply in the countries that are now strong economically and applies it seems to me and not to have been an a very appropriate approach and that i must say that's a lot of money thinking of these issues comes from another fast that i wear as dozens of oxfam international and i arrived next war the past when i was in france there were trying to adapt your address in a sustainable way how really to build up economies but i have to say that an oxfam would feel strongly and i think that this is the correct approach that we do need a multilateral rules based trade organization that bad lead affair not enough road rules based organization in order

to have genuinely fair trade and we're not there yet by any manner of means but an rather than air want to get rid of the wto it's a question of trying to have a they're trading system that is not enough wrote and that is fair and aired there is i'm glad to say a lot of discussion about that at the moment how that can come about and part of that coming about is to strengthen the gauzy aging i'm the strategy of developing countries and developing the long out of work and having a little bit there's a group of trade lawyers in geneva working with us as human rights people on how to scale up the negotiation powers of developing countries so the they can then work better within the tough trade law and world of the wto and and follow the small print of what is being proposed and protect themselves against some of the era agreements that were entered into in the past which have been helpful but its animation the imf are in relation to and the duty owed if you don't have

economists and smart trade lawyers and outside very often he went into a bad bargain and that's also the problem is a huge issue i don't think i can do anymore but at sealing thank you all in just a few years ago the united nations' general us general assembly special session on a caribbean aids flea the so called on gasoline a job in aids reduce the document fifty pages or so a blueprint for the world to really deal with this epidemic very comprehensive in probably less than that all of the factors and forces and risks that you and i can put our heads together and come up with except one it made no mention and fifty pages of men who have sex with men and the risks that they face in this disease i guess my question then is do

you based on your experience and travel certain and so on you consider prejudice discrimination and oppression of gay and lesbian bisexual people worldwide to be a major human rights issue these days or not i don't know what your answer would be i'm eager to hear and if you do do you consider the un guess strategy of avoidance to be the way well good way to deal with this problem a thank you first of all i'm in the context of the kind of discussions we've had far they're raising the issue of a chevy and aids in referring to that special session and of the un and a lot of the time i do focus and considerably on the issue of hate it invades because such a human rights issue and that come to your question but very briefly say if you look at the figures in subsaharan africa some twenty nine million in subsaharan africa or hate it positive

or have full blown aids of those more than sixty about sixty percent now our girls and women and there's a higher prevalence of girls been infected many of the women infected are married women who've never have another partner theyre infected by their husbands in effect and they're very vulnerable because they're in a marriage for its impossible to say no because women are not empowered to then be able to and protect themselves are and require the husband use condoms or whatever so it's a it's a huge and problem off a pandemic but of the twenty nine million at tiny fraction but two hundred thousand have access to anti retro viral drugs and treatment and that to me is enough food scandal because it's not actually right held anymore it's right to prolong life and it's a right to prolong life of young parents of teachers of doctors in a country like zambia more teachers are dying in zambia can train teachers to replace them and as it's the active population that are affected but us your question very

directly yes stigma and discrimination are a huge factor olson the context of a chevy and aids and as a human rights issue and the gay and lesbian a transsexual and bisexual clearly a very seriously affected by us and it is an issue that i raised and has high commissioner for human rights of measures and in many many cups picks adjusting to one to illustrate it was in argentina in the desires in about november two thousand and one i would say and i sat in the room with the group of eight sexual and transsexuals all of them are hate it positive all of them have proof ink stories of discrimination to talk about not being treated in hospitals being an ad driven out of their homes you can be used by the police and not getting exit visas to travel and visit this country or c relatives all kinds of issues and one of the

other and then to sit in a room of people and and be aware of it so starkly traverse and interestingly we talk about this i had come relatively recently from visits to brazil and specifically to rio de janeiro and ice all they're a very good practice if i could put it that way and by this is a local office of the mcc department of police and just as abbas just a police station and was also a justice department and i went up to the top of us to two rooms which had been given free to the gay and lesbian community in rio to use as the hotline place so they and actually they had their telephones and their an empty seasoned ad that uses the things all working from there the am and telephone calls that come in the voice dealing with this was a voice from the gay or lesbian gay lesbian community and and they would take details but the potential for a follow up

and was there in the promise itself was an extremely hopeful effective way to just a contrast you know and one you had a person centred appropriate way of dealing with this issue where people were being an they're attacked and victimized and don't discriminate against our plate that they how the hotline and ineffective response and the response and initially had been quite tense took that became they're much more about them as an effective response when trust was built up between those were manning the hotline and the police who were going back to that deal with situations of assault and victimization incest or so and it is a very big issue and said did violence against a person for many reasons it's still a huge human rights issue and as amnesty international are launching a campaign starting this friday to be launched in london which i'm also supporting them on violence against women at which is an extraordinary

you know it was extraordinary and in our globalizing world of rapid change it's a problem that's growing and part of the problem is their own air attacks on women who are in any way marginalized and jittery because of the sexual orientation and more than that because they would don't conform to and cultural norms in sf and societies of the show so that all stages those were more vulnerable are more likely to get attacked and partially human rights message is definitely on a cavity but to build support and to know that these are an important human rights issues and then these robots and i'd like to thank you on behalf of our amnesty international group on campus were right back there and i just like to ask you a very quick question what at what age do you believe is appropriate to begin teaching children about human rights abuses and other unpleasant things to learn about you know

it's an interesting question and i'm in favor of and beginning is appropriately young but doing it in a way that's there instead of some shocking with terrible images of that from them learning that's them children and you should know about wright's know that they themselves have rights that others have rights that must be respected and an incandescent awake and and i'm very much in favor of them human rights been approached not in a kind of classroom set context of a teacher talking about human rights does over the head a dozen years ago but engage in either role play or go out and see a situation and a young go to them a refuge for women who are them and there because they've suffered from violence and you know listen to summer stories that are what make it real experience of learning to respect the rights of others including parents teachers as i've talked about human rights and then i think it's it's it's really very good at it can be done

early i have to say i'm in relation to air and that and i would you know what i used to put a lot of emphasis on human rights education and of course the key documents are united dictation starts with universal declaration of human rights and in at the national level and i forgot to mention there were my irish half again but i got the guinness book of records for the universal declaration it's the most translated documenting the world together because they talked about three hundred twenty languages at that time an outstanding in order that it would be available in indigenous groups minorities and then all the languages of the world but that would be a text and for human rights education that's robinson i'm the situation could be a person from the flooded nation in montana and i came to greet you and expressed sincere gratitude for your work on the world stage in champagne champaign human rights and for your efforts making peace have a specific question for you

to the united nations many traditional native nations don't believe that they're being heard and we are questioning whether that's the appropriate forum since only nation states or you know voting members i guess someone asked you if you believe that there's another forum in which indigenous peoples are being heard and wanted to let you know the north america you have way more fans in indian country than you could ever count thank you first of all for your i want reaching an unkind words and there is now and i must say i did supported strongly as high commissioner is now in you at a forum with what he called the permanent forum for indigenous issues which meets every may a new york as part of the un and it's one where

indigenous peoples their representatives are in as part of the deciding and it's partly government representatives and partly indigenous representatives i'm not sure if you're familiar with this but i know it's only a few contests director visitation but still it is a step forward that an ad and that is dealing with a whole range of indigenous issues and i'm very happy to know those at the meeting and made this year the first session will be on that indigenous women and i think that's a really good session because they also need a lot of focus and it would be a very good opportunity for their voices to be heard and there are a couple of indigenous women who are members of the form itself or the deciding you know that the body was the size of a forum will we discuss so and i've heard that point to be making and that it's taking off long time to try to have a decoration and non indigenous issues that it hasn't been agreed to and part of the reason these problems of land rights come communal riots and a sense of them they're in the

identity of people's but it's better that these things be talk about and dialogue and i think the un can provide useful forum for one postscript on the sales that are longstanding governments have never relinquished their authority and we only await the proper forum which to join in the work in the world dialogue and peace has a microphone bernie short easily have another wealth seven people i have become scarce if with the occurrence of an both rwanda and bosnia if there's constant concern for people have enough sense of security with the presence of un troops and if so if there's any commitment that strongly made most people in the future i think there has been an icon

of realization of how much and that has been a failure a human failure of failure of at the as strong member states who effectively can decide on resources and policy at the un in situations like there's real wonder was a terrible and moments and not shameful and situation where then there was that the report in fact by a human rights expert i'm a very good african as human rights person who subsequently came to work for me in the office of high commissioner still with the office in new york and back rub wiley in the eye he was the front porch are on extra judicial killings he visited rwanda in august of nineteen ninety three and he reporters and said and i'm very concerned if we don't do something that would be a genocide the killing and he had seen the way that the radios been used to whip up as dictator that often but whose whose of the tutsis them the new clean video and other and ways of communicating the whole tension

in it and then it was a case of and just be there and she would rise voice not being hurt but when the attacks began the small number of un troops were and with strong indeed as you know the canadian general and was in a very difficult situation and has an spoken out very courageously and very frankly similarly in bosnia and it didn't prevent terrible a massacre them and said the parent situation is not one that anybody involved in human looks back on with wit with much pride because i think you're really asking is how do we ensure things get better and there have been so many reports was a very good report by luck to ricky me on strengthening peacekeeping peace and security is the very good un official who headed the un mission in afghanistan and he was recently in baghdad to try and assess the situation there is very experienced and

and he made a ranger recommendations if they were implemented it would make such a difference and built a previous septa general boutros ghali and kofi annan have at some points wondered if the un could just have some kind of room a reserve force to be available for urgent situations that has never been agreed on member states as it undergoes or symbols an underpass day when situations arise such as not as now arising in an eighteen which is the reason also recently in nigeria and elsewhere it's very hard to get countries to commit troops and at the moment it's not precisely when it's nato in an afghanistan and any of us who have been to afghanistan i was there as high commissioner and i thought that in kabul itself and the roll of the eyes of the international force was an elite you know compellingly good in a sense does emmet had provided the messages security at that early stage and to allow president karzai to begin the process of building up his government's on but if you went outside kabul and

went to missouri sharif and around the next corner and you run safe because there was no real guarantee them out the warlords were effectively still running things and the situation i think has worsened in certain parts of afghanistan so that to me is a huge moral crisis of the moment surely we will pledge afghanistan on arrival but if we're not careful it might and that's not actually pointing a finger as much of the united states thats pointing fingers european countries and why is it there's the european countries germany in particular and others and that have some troops with the major cut off and as altman's their commitments and m have real security for the afghan people so arun a the way the un this is kind of it's the whipping boy and it's understandable and it's the focus of criticism of criticism sometimes very justified what the un depends on member states providing resources and fifty three the troops it doesn't have a separate army doesn't have any event the peacekeeping of the un depends on an airstrip spin

provided by by member states and it's not an adequate response to and the human rights and violations that occur during conflict but unfortunately we haven't moved on properly and sustainable way and and we should it can take only one more question still basic question asked period because president robison is dulcie from three o'clock without any still for different audiences at least one more question i think there's a microphone that with a nice thank you for all your work on my question has hopefully a very simple word made a very complex the same time what you think about nations like the us easing economic sanctions to faster political change or respect for human rights norms or is repressive states like burma you think that's an easy question then it's extraordinarily difficult

and said to their deal with their countries like myanmar and when they're such respect for sovereignty and i understand them quite as such respect them and that was that focus of the charter of the united nations to respect the sovereignty of countries but it means that the capacity to really influenced when there degree just terrible violations of human rights as a lot of them and one of the ways is to try to apply and sanctions economic sanctions than the the dilemma is how to ensure that those sanctions don't and makes a situation where the worst the poorest and most vulnerable to have another where topical smart sanctions and the same thing in zimbabwe at the moment smart sanctions that affect the guardian's his and colleagues of that and not the london that the terrible suffering of the as a zimbabwean and people and so bat with its individual countries without un

sanctions and the problem is always the same and that that it's very hard to have them a smart and toddlers as people would like in order to be effective and yes and we need to use all the tools we have because it's hard to an a and get a change in human rights and there it's necessary to an iowa did what is a certain pressure at certain times and build towers of being to meet them and that's acceptable tons of them to get engage in an elementary them and force so there and that i think that what we're learning is that what really put pressure on the country like myanmar is effective pressure by neighboring countries it as ian and countries as in itself and if they can't be persuaded and they are getting closer to have to put real pressure that's and that is what will have affects and more i think than any

sanctions and bye bye country such as the interstates you can